Cabbage · Longling County, Yunnan, China
When to plant cabbages in Longling County
Main outdoor window
30 Dec - 20 Jan
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
20 January
In Longling County, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
10 Mar - 9 Apr
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Longling County
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Start indoors
25 Nov - 16 Dec
Eight weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Sow for overwintering
10-31 Aug
Counting back 114 days from your first frost so the crop matures in time.
Plant out
30 Dec - 20 Jan
Three weeks before your last frost.
Harvest
10 Mar - 9 Apr
Cabbages through the year
Against the frost risk in Longling County
Why these dates
Spring cabbage sown in late summer and overwintered gives the earliest crop of the year. Summer and autumn types go in from an early indoor sowing.
Hardy to about -8C, and savoy types considerably lower. Young transplants handle frost far better than most gardeners expect.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Cabbages are timed from 8 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 3 weeks before it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Longling County.
The median frost-free season here is 337 days, against 70 to 100 days to maturity for this crop counted from planting out. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Longling County
Other vegetables to time
Growing cabbages in Longling County
When should I plant cabbages in Longling County?
Aim for 30 Dec - 20 Jan in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 3-24 Jan - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will cabbages be ready to harvest in Longling County?
Expect to start picking around 10 Mar - 9 Apr, based on 70 to 100 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will cabbages tolerate?
Hardy to about -8C, and savoy types considerably lower. Young transplants handle frost far better than most gardeners expect.